Watching the aphids snow down from the window through the window in his temporary office, Martin thought about drugs. New drugs, cyber drugs. It had started innocently enough; sober for 10 years, when his office mate suggested a drug free addiction in the form of online troll basing. It was simple, you typed in a different address emailed to you each week, and feasted your eyes on patterns and swirls that made your mind drip and drool into your cerebral cortex. It was heady, techy, weird ass shit. Martin remembers reading some story as a kid about this music you could listen to from this black market cassette that was supposed to do the same thing. So he signed up, paid his dues, and typed in the address. He didn't know how...but it worked.
So he checked it at work once in the bathroom, scrolling through his phone, getting caught up/high, then walked back to his desk and watched the aphids, covered in their own snowy sugar feces, fly around outside. It looked pretty until you had to clean off your car/grill/bicycle/deck. he could care less. He was high and nothing else mattered.

Smoked drifted up form the ashtray that lay on his belly. Sweat kept his leg glued to hers as he stared into the ceiling fan above him; spent. She halfway rolled over and kept trying to find a cool spot in the dank sheets. Marcel picked up his cigarette and took a slow, thoughtful drag. "I don't care that you are leaving," he joked scratching her calf with his toe nail. Music played in the other room where the evening started: half eaten food, plates; the kicked over chair. She reached over and thumbed the old Saint necklace that was his granddad's. "Assisi," she asked?

He wiped away the moisture from his beer and motioned to her to sit down on the tailgate of his truck. The humidity played tricks with her shirt; sticking to one arm, hanging freely from the other. They sat for a while listening to the loud cicadas calling back and forth from the hydrangeas and the little dogwood tree he had planted. The radio was playing a local baseball game.  She couldn't tell if he was following it or just had it on for something to listen to.
Do you even like baseball, she said grabbing his beer and taking a pull. 
 

"So we generally start by asking you tell a couple of lies about yourself."
"Um, ok. I am 5'9", I break dance.."
"Ok, stop. We need to calibrate."
Deborah pulled a long cigarette out of her pack and started patting down her pockets, looking for a lighter.  The room had a greenish tint to it but Deborah doubted she would call it "green."  She found her lighter and lit her cigarette.  Warm light flooded though the dusty windows and she took a small drag and then held out her hand with the cigarette in it, studying her fingernails.  She had used a burgundy sorta of wine color; malbac?   She tapped the cigarette twice with her pointer finger even though there was barely an ash.  She could hear a train somewhere in the distance, she thought about a movie she saw about squatter punks.  What happened to their dogs, she often thought?  And face tattoos?  Fuck that.
She pulled out her phone and started thumbing through photos of herself.  Mostly in black for the last several months all of the pictures looked the same:  sharp, black bangs, black shirt, black pants...black.  She read the black made you look thinner and that was all she needed.  She took a polite drag and blew the smoke out of the side of her mouth, setting her chin on her hand.  She was looking up with a "sigh" look on her face like she saw in a movie, or read about.  No one was even watching her.

I love multiple successful runs laid out over days when the moon is rising just as my route leads me back to my house.  My house painted in dark greens, surrounded by plants whose names I routinely fail to remember.  Orion showing his sheath and bow. 
When timed right my runs help me sleep better and keep my legs from running restless trots within my bedsheets.  Tossing and turning.  These instances produce various dreams.  One such dream involved me searching in vain through a grocery store for food.  Turning up dried glass after dried glass onto my parched mouth.  Flies buzzing around me. 
Skinny jeans on large girls.
Hooded sweat shirts; black.  Worn tightly around my shoulders with exposed wrists. 
Not a real winter but just nice days that I only see through my window.  I haven't seen the cormorants this year.  They should still be out there at the lakes, with their winged arms thrown jagged into the sunlight; drying.  The roseate spoon bill I saw that time, a passing stranger claimed good luck.

Tyler adjusts his neck in his collar, and then grasps at his tongue with the tips of this fingers.  He makes a slight spitting sound as he tries to grasp the imaginary hair from his mouth.  It sounds like, "thpt,"only softer.  He thinks its a blonde hair but he really can't remember if she spent the night last night with him or not.  Was he dreaming last night?  He stares blankly ahead, trying to find this hair. Its a blonde hair, or its brown.
His colleagues sit around the table eating doughnuts and talking about the show "Friends."  Tyler wants to watch this show, but he can't.  Francis brings out his huge phone and starts waving it in front of Tyler's face.  A picture of Francis with his kid.  They are making faces.
"Erm," Tyler says.  He likes kids fine.  He doesn't like looking at picture on peoples phones.  Or he doesn't really mind it.  Its just meaningless to him.
"We were taking pictures of ourselves making faces," Francis says. 
"Ah," Tyler says.  The hair has vanished.  Tyler hears his co-workers asking different questions, getting ready for the meeting.  Something about computers.  Did Tyler have similar problems?  He didn't know.  He decided to act like he is trying to fish something out of his coffee.  His phone started buzzing in his pocket.  He pushes back his chair and stands up, making the "I have to take this call," face to the table.  He steps outside with the phone to his head.
"Bro, hey, Dad's gonna be fine.  He just had a panic attack.  Too much weed or something.  He is gonna stay here for another 20 minutes or so, then he is going home.  It's nothing."
Tyler cleared his throat.  "Thank god.  Ok.  That is great news.  I may swing by his house and bring him a coke or something.  Glad he is ok."
He pops back into the meeting room and mentions his dad is in the hospital.  Someone says "that is awful."  Tyler assures them that its nothing but he told his mom he would drop by and help out.  They completely understand.
Tyler tries to hide the joy in his quick walk as he bounds down the two flights of stairs to the 4th floor.  He slows to a crawl right before passing Veronica's door.  A slower crawl.  He half turns into her office.
"Hey," he says.  Sorta hanging on the "ay", exaggerating his southerness. 
"Hi," she says.  Staring up at him from her desk.  Eyes locked.  He drums triplets on the door jam. 
"I'm getting out of here.  Wanna get lunch or something?"
"Right," she says, sitting back in her chair, still looking at him.
"Right," he says.  He walks towards the elevator at the end of the hall, pressing the down button.  His left eye twitches a little and he rubs his hand over his face near his jaw line.  He thinks he hears birds calling.  He isn't sure. 

"Searching for beautiful truths, wishing there was someway to put it back to be with you," he said, sliding into the booth across the table from the lovely Anne Rolands, varsity queen, valedictorian, star basketball player, home coming queen, farmers daughter, and accomplished amateur poet.  She had won the local poetry contest in her town's paper the past three years running.  She had one poem published by a well known state publication, and had, currently, one poem up for an award nationally.  Tyler loved her.  Loved her as only a 17 year old can; completely, and without false pretense.  He would kill for her.
"What the fuck does that mean," Anne said; she had her father's mouth.
Tyler tore at his muffin and pondered the sharpness of her nose, her tiny mouth, and the way her hair parted close to the middle.  He had loved her since he was 15, an age of falling down, stubbing your feet, and adjusting your body into clothes and shoes that never seem to fit.  Light fell into the cafe from a 50 degree angle, filtering loosely through the dust and into the back of Anne's hair, giving her a angel quality.  This was not lost on Tyler. 
"I love you, Anne," Tyler said. 
In dreams sometimes it becomes apparent that nothing is real.